Post-Harvest Loss Assessment and Marketing Practices of Fruits: An Empirical Study of Maulvibazar District in Bangladesh

Aims: The present study highlighted the post-harvest loss assessment and marketing practices of fruits at different stages of marketing and their impact on farmers’ net price, marketing costs, margins, and efficiency from both farmers and various intermediaries (bepari, wholesaler, and retailer). Study Design: This article is a post-harvest loss assessment study and is placed on empirical analysis. The study considered post-harvest losses in farm and intermediaries’ level and its market practices which impact on farmer’s income, net price, marketing margin, and efficiency. Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted at Sreemangal Upazila of Maulvibazar district of Bangladesh. Data were collected from April to May for lemon and May to June for pineapple, 2019 as this time period is the harvesting season of lemon and pineapple. Methodology: The relevant data were collected from the farmers and intermediaries of lemon and pineapple of Maulvibazar District, Bangladesh. The sample size for lemon and pineapple was 240, where 80 farmers and 40 intermediaries were taken from four villages of Sreemangal Upazila in Maulvibazar district. Data from farmers were collected through simple random sampling based on the list of farmers and for intermediaries purposive sampling techniques was used as there had no fixed list of intermediaries in the study area. Data was analyzed by using Microsoft Excel and Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). Results: Total post-harvest loss of lemon was 20.57% and 23.99% for pineapple of total production at farm level. The highest loss was estimated at 87.93 kg/quintal at the intermediaries’ level in the case of lemons, and 16.50 kg/quintal was for pineapples at farm level. Among different intermediaries, post-harvest loss of lemons was highest at the retail level (70.93 kg/quintal) and for pineapples at the wholesale level (9.18 kg/quintal). The net price received by the farmers for pineapple was greater that the farmers for lemon. Before and after separating losses, according to the conventional method, the net price received by the farmers was Tk. 10.06/kg and 17.13/kg for lemon and Tk. 15.58/kg and Tk. 20.01/kg for pineapple. After taking into account the physical loss during retailing, the margin of the retailers is less (loss) than other intermediaries indicated that they incurred a net loss during the retail trade due to high post-harvest losses. Conclusion: It has been concluded that pineapple marketing is a more efficient system in terms of both operations and price than lemon. The total marketing cost was lower at farm level on lemon and pineapple compared to intermediaries’ level. Marketing cost has been identified as the major constraint in the wholesale marketing channel, and bringing down the costs, particularly the loading and unloading and transportation charges as demonstrated in the marketing channel, will help reduce the price-spread and increase the producers’ margin. The need for specialized transport vehicles for perishable commodities has been highlighted.